


Conscious, Deliberate Mistakes

by LilyRosePotter



Category: Pundit & Broadcast Journalist RPF (US)
Genre: Infidelity, M/M, TL5Y au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-14 19:54:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14143347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilyRosePotter/pseuds/LilyRosePotter
Summary: "so were you drunk? Was it sudden and whirlwind? Did you resist the pull?""No. No. No."





	Conscious, Deliberate Mistakes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [retweet_this](https://archiveofourown.org/users/retweet_this/gifts).



> Happy Birthday Katy <3

_ Hey, kid– good morning– _

_ You look like an angel _

_ I don't remember when we fell asleep _

_ We should get up, kid– _

 

_ \----- _

 

He wakes up in the early morning light and it takes him a minute to remember. He rolls over in bed, his bed, their bed, to the warmth beside him and he’s looking at broad shoulders and short hair before he remembers. 

It hadn’t been an accident, is the worst thing. He has a mental picture of some future version of himself being asked: so were you drunk? Was it sudden and whirlwind? Did you resist the pull? and having to answer each question: no. no. no. No I knew what I was doing, I thought about it ahead of time, I  _ planned _ how I was going to break my marriage. 

It didn’t used to be like this. When they started it was light and exciting and new. They met when everything was going right, when his career was taking off, when hers was looking bright. They fell in love when it seemed like nothing in the world could get in their way. His life was so perfect, hurtling forwards to all his dreams faster than he could imagine. 

And then they got married, and then she failed, again and again and again. He doesn’t care about the failures. He loves her for her imperfections. What he cares about is the way she’s reacted, the way she’s shut him out, the way she’s made him feel like he needs to do anything, everything possible to get her attention, to turn her focus to  _ him _ as he is in front of her not as he exists in her head. 

When they talk to each other it’s to fight. They’re separated by all this physical and emotional distance and it’s not something he ever bargained for or planned. He knew this. He isolated the problem in his head and thought about how to deal with it. And this is where he landed. 

Jim stirs beside him and he looks down at his face, pensive in sleep. It’s not like he hadn’t known he was attracted to him from the day they started working together. It’s not like he didn’t know he smiled a little bigger when they got to share the screen, leaned in a little closer with Jim in his earpiece. It started to drive him to distraction right after he got married which seems unfair. That his brain would take commitment to love her for a lifetime as an inducement to think like  _ that _ about someone else. 

And then last week, they’d had a terrible awful fight when he visited her. When he said he needed to go home early to cover an event. He went home and did the event and went out with some people afterwards and looked at Jim across the room and thought  _ yes _ . 

He’s pulled from his thoughts by the sound of a ringing phone and they both jolt as if the phone will catch them out. It’s his phone and he looks at the lockscreen to discover that yes, it’s her. “Sorry,” he says and climbs out of bed as he answers. He’s half listening to her complaints about her boss and her job and when is he coming out there again as he watches Jim dress hurriedly. Jim drops a hand on his shoulder as he walks towards the door and squeezes briefly. He thinks about grabbing his wrist, keeping him here, even as the door closes silently behind him.

It would be different, with Jim. They’d be different. He’d be different. It would be the way it should be. He could be in love with someone like Jim, long term, unchanging kind of love. It wouldn’t all fall apart like this. 

  
  


\-----

  
  


He stands in front of the door for ten minutes before he finds the courage to knock. He’s got a bag with everything he needs clutched in his hand, a new bank card in his wallet, no house key on his keychain. He’d left her a fucking note, unable to even do this part properly. 

The interviewer in his head asks: did you think it through? and he says yes. Yes, I knew as I wrote it that it was the worst way to leave her. I wrote “I loved you so” like that was going to help even as I knew that it would only hurt her worse.

He finally knocks on the door and thirty seconds later, Jim opens it. 

 


End file.
